A Boy's-Eye View of the Arctic

By Kennett Longley Rawson

"A Boy's-Eye View of the Arctic" by Kennett Longley Rawson isn't just a run-of-the-mill book recounting an arctic expedition. This book really portrays the adventure and ruthless nature of such a harsh landscape. Told from the perspective of the youngest members of the voyage, readers will feel as if they were right there in the freezing cold along with the team.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Aug 21, 2022
• ISBN: 4064066427887

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Kennett Longley Rawson

A Boy’s-Eye View of the Arctic

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4064066427887

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

I HERE ENDETH THE LESSON

CHAPTER II UNDER WEIGH

CHAPTER III IN THE LAND OF ADVENTURE

CHAPTER IV A TRULY GLORIOUS FOURTH AND SOME VERY REAL FISHING

CHAPTER V THROUGH THE PACK TO DISASTER

CHAPTER VI THE HEROES OF HOPEDALE

CHAPTER VII IN ESKIMO LAND AND IN TROUBLE

CHAPTER VIII GREENLAND!

CHAPTER IX ICE AND MORE ICE

CHAPTER X WE TAKE THE AIR

CHAPTER XI MY FARTHEST NORTH

CHAPTER XII WE BREAK INTO SOCIETY

CHAPTER XIII STORM AND STRESS AND—HOME!

INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

TO the lecturer the introduction is the most interesting part of his lecture, in that it is generally so complimentary that his feeling of guilt and a sense of his own inferiority mars somewhat his whole discourse. My cabin boy, Kennett Rawson, suffers no handicap in this respect. His work is finished. Whatever I may write will not affect its status. His narrative stands as a testimonial of the influence of good and much reading. Very few will believe that such language is natural for a fourteen-year-old boy. But we knew Ken in the forecastle of the little Bowdoin, and teachers at Hill School who have watched his progress for two years can assure you that the book is his own.

How fortunate that a boy in his early teens could visit the scenes of our early explorers, the headquarters of the great Peary, who, by his work, has placed before American youth the finest example of persistency, determination, and clean grit in all Arctic history. What a privilege for young Rawson to stand where the immortal Elisha Kent Kane stood with lifted ramrod and fluttering cap lining, the first to step foot on historical Littleton Island, and to enter the Basin which bears his name!

From the heights about Etah he has looked across to the ice-covered hills of Ellesmere Land and Cape Sabine where Greely and his men lay dying in 1884 and where Peary fought a losing fight in 1900-1902. He has seen the last of the S. S. Polaris, which steamed farther north than ship ever steamed, now strewn about the beach rusting, rotting away. But memories of her Commander, the most enthusiastic of all Arctic explorers, will always live.

Something more than pure sentiment. No boy can look upon such things, can dwell upon the deeds of such men as Kane, Hayes, Hall, Greely and Peary, without standing a little more erect, without visualizing his own future and determining to have that future count for something beyond material gain.

With mingled feelings of apprehension, doubt as to the wisdom of my decision, I signed Kennett Rawson on the ship’s papers as Cabin boy, Chicago, age 14, the youngest white lad ever to go into the Far North.

Under starlit skies and unruffled sea; in the semi-darkness of his 10-11 watch, I watched him as he stood at the wheel giving her a spoke now and then to keep her on her course, his small sheepskin-covered form outlined against the black of the ocean. In howling winds and with the Bowdoin plunging and bucking head seas, decks awash and life lines stretched, the same huddled form, eyes on the compass card, doing his best, with never trace of quit, I, a shipmate for four months, knew him. Young Rawson made good. For that reason he goes back again with me in the Northland one week from to-day, back to the big grey hills of Labrador with their outlying, breaking reefs, to the inner reaches of its green bays, to its simple, sincere people; to Greenland, once the home of the Norsemen, now the land of the Dane and smiling half-breed; to Baffin Island, the Meta Incognita of Martin Frobisher, the objective of many an old New England whaling ship.

May he enjoy this fourth cruise of the Bowdoin as he did her third. The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, and when those thoughts or dreams are realized, doubly fortunate is youth.

Donald B. MacMillan.

Freeport, Maine.

June 12, 1926.

A BOY’S-EYE VIEW OF THE ARCTIC

The journey of the Bowdoin, 1925.

A BOY’S-EYE VIEW OF THE

ARCTIC

I

HERE ENDETH THE LESSON

Table of Contents

ONE warm June evening I was sitting up in my room supposedly studying, but actually all thoughts of study had long since gone where most good resolutions go. Who can study on a mild June evening anyway? I can study almost any other time, but on such occasions my thoughts go fluie, and I am off to Treasure Island or with Jules Verne. I was somewhere in those latitudes when a rap sounded on my door. I thought just retribution had overtaken me in the form of a master; so I opened a text book, scattered a few papers about for realistic effect and then went to the door.

Long distance for you at the exchange, said the messenger, who after all was not a master.

I slipped into my bathrobe and reported to the master on the hall.

Sir, long distance wants me at the exchange, I said.

All right, here’s your permission slip. Get it signed when you are through. And Rawson—don’t loaf on your way back.

No, sir, I said, and with this parting injunction I was off.

I took down the receiver, got my connection and yelled hello.

Hello, Ken, that you? It was Dad, and there was a note of excitement in his voice. Do you want to go to the Arctic with MacMillan this summer?

I leaned against the panel. Was I still with Jules Verne?

What, Dad? Say it again.

Dad laughed. Do you want to go to the Arctic with MacMillan this summer?

With MacMillan? With MacMillan? I gasped! What was he trying to put over? Well, at last it got across, and it didn’t take me long to say yes. He then told me how it all happened, and my surprise and wonderment increased at every word. At last he had to hang up, and I went back to my room in a haze. I could hardly grasp the significance of what I had just heard. A few minutes before I was merely a student at The Hill; now I was an explorer. Well of course not quite that, but something along that line, and anyway I was going on an Arctic expedition and that’s all that mattered.

I returned to my hall and reported to the master in charge.

Where is your slip? he said rather shortly.

My slip? I forgot to have it signed. Oh, sir, MacMillan and I are going exploring in the Arctic regions!

The master looked incredulous, but as I still retained the air of being partly sane, he began to show real interest.

How did you happen to choose MacMillan? he queried.

Oh, sir, I didn’t mean that, I meant that Commander MacMillan is going to take me with him this summer, I replied, rather embarrassed by my outbreak.

Well, just how did you get in on a thing like this? he asked.

For several summers I have sailed, I said, and I like the sea. Last summer I was engaged in the scientific work of the Bureau of Fisheries on a little schooner. We made a number of trips off shore, and I gained quite a bit of experience. I liked the work so well that I told father that I thought I should like to be an explorer instead of a banker—father’s business. A friend of father’s, Mr. Joseph MacDonald, being acquainted with these facts and also with Commander MacMillan, conceived the idea that I ought to go on the forthcoming expedition with the Commander. I fear he must have strained a point in telling of my qualifications for a berth on the ship, but he finally persuaded the Commander to take me. After this he broke the good news to father. Then the two of them had the difficult task of convincing Mother that I ought to go. My mother is like most mothers, only a little more so, and it was quite a job to show her that the undertaking was not too dangerous and that it would be a valuable experience. She was finally won over, and so that’s how I am going.

Well, said the master, some people do seem to have all the luck. Go to your room quietly, and remember that we’re still keeping school around here.

Yes, sir, I said, and I went out. He had forgotten all about the slip!

If I worked hard, I had